Description: Emil Görling, a German solider during World War I, was a member of the Aufraumungs-Arbeit (literally translated as the “clean-up” crew) in the 3rd Landwehr Division of the Imperial German Army. Görling’s division participated in the 1918 German Spring Offensive in France. The two images here were among 14 gelatin photographs and 4 printed postcards that belonged to him. They show both the horror of war and the pastimes of soldiers everywhere.

The East Carolina Playhouse

Description: Today’s post features an original program for Anton Chekhov’s The Three Sisters as presented by the East Carolina Playhouse. This 1985 production cast list includes future Oscar-winning Actress and ECU alumni, Sandra Bullock. Visit Joyner Library’s Digital Collections page to view digitized images of items featured in this post.

Official Program for East Carolina Playhouse’s presentation of The Three Sisters featuring Sandra Bullock and Kevin Williamson.

The East Carolina Playhouse began as the Teachers Playhouse during the mid-1940s. This campus organization was initially designed to “give its members practical experience” and “promote an enthusiasm for the drama in all its phases (1949 Tecoan, p. 105 https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/15354).” Over the years, the Playhouse’s popularity increased, as did student participation. Campus yearbooks often boasted successful seasons, paying homage to the actors and actresses involved.

Sandra Bullock and The Playhouse

Sandra Bullock enrolled at East Carolina University in the early 1980s, by which time the Playhouse served as a well-established campus organization. She landed starring roles in several Playhouse productions during her college years. In The Three Sisters, Bullock played Irina, the youngest of three Russian sisters seeking deliverance from unexceptional, small-town lives. Additionally,she starred as Jean in Stage Door (1983) and as Tiger Lily in Peter Pan (1985). Interestingly, another noteworthy ECU alumni, future filmography icon Kevin Williamson, acted alongside Bullock in her 1985 Playhouse performances.

Image and cast list featured in the 1986 copy of The Buccaneer, p. 182.

Sandra Bullock (front and center) playing Jean in Stage Door. Image taken from the 1984 copy of The Buccaneer, p. 234.

Description:

Special Collections holds many books dealing with nautical themes. Among them is Isaac Ridler Butts’ 1850 The Merchant Shipper’s Assistant and 1849 The Seaman’s Assistant – Joyner’s copies were bound together, so we have two books in one!

Title page for “The Merchant Shipper’s Assistant”

The first helped shipmasters, owners, and shipping companies understand insurance laws related to their business, while the second gave sailors an idea of their rights. Butts’ company printed similar volumes of insurance and business laws for landlords, tenants, mechanics, and farmers.

The second, the Seaman’s Assistant, shifts focus from shipping companies to the people who worked for them. It lists requirements for sailors’ food (lots of salt beef and pork). It also explains what companies had to pay if they left a sailor behind in a foreign port (two months’ extra wages to the sailor, one month’s to the American consulate to help support other destitute sailors).

Detail from one of several charts in “The Seaman’s Assistant” showing recommendations for feeding sailors, page 99

At ECU, 18th-century pirates like Blackbeard get most of the attention. Even in the 19th century, however, The Seaman’s Assistant still lists the penalties for piracy (which included fines, hard labor, and death).

Detail from page 65 of “Seaman’s Assistant” outlining the penalties for working with pirates, which included fines of up to $1000 and 3-year prison sentences

Guilford Andrews carried this woman’s portrait during the Civil War. Andrews was a member of Company E. 43rd Regiment, known as “The Edgecombe Boys”. He enlisted at the age of 22 on January 28th 1862. He was mustered in at Camp Mangum, near Raleigh. He was wounded in the elbow at or near Bethesda Church, Virginia, on May 30th 1864. http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/totopotomoy-creek/maps/totopotomoy-creek-may.html He returned to duty on September-October, 1864, and was promoted to Corporal, on November 1, 1864. He was then captured near Petersburg, Virginia on March 25, 1865. He was a prisoner at Point Lookout, Maryland, and he was released on June 22, 1865, after taking the Oath of Allegiance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Lookout,_Maryland

Description: J. H. Rose, Civil Defense Manager for Pitt County, talks on telephone during Hurricane Donna in September of 1960. Hurricane Donna touched every state on the East Coast from Florida to Maine. In North Carolina there were eight deaths and 100 injured with property damage over five million dollars.

The James G. Raby Papers consists of handwritten letters from James G. Raby; a physician from Leggett, North Carolina who served as a 2nd Lieutenant during World War I. This particular letter dated October 8, 1918 is one written by him to his sweetheart and it contains a description of the influenza epidemic that occurred in Rocky Mount and Tarboro (1918-1919).

Description: Originating just prior to WWI under the name Monk Adams Company, Wilson, N.C, A.C. Monk & Company officially began business in Farmville, N.C. on May 10, 1922.

The company’s records recently donated to the East Carolina Manuscript Collection attest to a continuous period of impressive growth. The firm soon became one of the nation’s leading dealers in leaf-tobacco.

According to Albert Monk III, grandson of A.C. Monk, the company’s initial wealth relied heavily on diverse business interests: namely, farmland, a furniture store and funeral home. In the late 1980s; however, it was decided that in order to grow, the company had to get bigger.

As such, on July 13, 1990, the business merged with a competitor to form Monk-Austin Inc. Another merger later that decade resulted in the creation of DIMON Inc. which emerged to become the second largest leaf-tobacco merchant in the world. Monk family members retained some indirect ownership in this entity until its eventual acquisition by Alliance One in the early 2000s.

On view here is an auditor’s statement from July 13, 1920, one of a nearly intact collection of business papers spanning from approximately 1916 to the early 2010s. Company founder, A.C. Monk, Sr. died on June 6, 1948. Sons, Albert C., Robert Turnage and William C. succeeded him.

Description: This image features Leo Warren Jenkins serving on Guadalcanal. Born in Succasunna, New Jersey, Jenkins enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1942 upon completion of his doctoral degree at New York University. For his distinguished service, Jenkins was awarded a Bronze Star and two presidential unit citations. In 1947, Jenkins accepted the position of Dean of Men at then East Carolina Teachers College. He succeeded John D. Messick as President of East Carolina College in 1960 and in 1967 he was designated as the first Chancellor of East Carolina University. As president and chancellor, Jenkins oversaw major increases in student enrollment, the addition of a medical school, a major building campaign, and spearheaded the drive for university status. Upon his retirement in 1978 he continued to serve the citizens of North Carolina as a special assistant for Economic Development for Governor James B. Hunt, Jr. Jenkins passed away on January 14, 1989. Ever proud of being a Marine, he once remarked, “…it has been brought to my attention that there are more Marines enrolled in this institution than in any other college or university in the world. This pleases me very much for I shall always be proud of my association with these men. Since revolutionary war days, it has always been said that once a Marine always a Marine. This will be my lasting honor.”

Description: The E. C. Winslow Collection (#1174) contains a variety of postcards. Among them is this funny postcard sent by Corporal John Pittman to E.C. (Edward Cyrus) Winslow. It is from the year 1944 and was sent from Camp Polk, Louisiana. This collection is definitely worth seeing for anyone interested in the World War II era and in postcards. Persons who want to get additional information on this item can go to https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/special/ead/findingaids/1174